News

The wind of change is here

Mar 05

On March 5, Martins Kazaks, Governor of the Central Bank of Latvia addressed 60 AmCham members and guests on recent economic and financial trends at Radisson Blu Hotel Ridzene.

He pointed out that Latvia's economic growth slowed down to 2.1% last year and it has reached its critical peak. Global economy is still slightly growing despite of recent changes in financial markets effected by created by the corona virus outbreak and will its impact on the economic growth projections for Latvia this year. The forecast for 2020 has been affected by a less favorable situation on foreign markets and less favorable developments in several key sectors of Latvian economy, including transport and construction, as well as a significant increase in external risks. Banking and financial sector are the ones that can be impacted and controled by local institutions and entrepreneurs.

According to Mr. Kazāks, the wage growth is needed, however productivity growth is a bit slower than expected. Our task is to think about the ways to push up productivity. The main three areas of imporance for Latvia are: reforms in both education and infrastructure systems and imporvements in heathcare system to ensure longer and healthier lives for our society.

Mārtiņš Kazāks has been the Governor of the Bank of Latvia since December 2019. Mr Kazaks had been the Chief Economist of Hansabanka (later Swedbank) Latvia branch from 2005 to 2018 and a member of the Council of the Bank of Latvia from 2018 to 2019. Mārtiņš Kazāks is a graduate of Liepāja Rainis Secondary School No. 6 (1991) and holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Latvia (1995), a Diploma in Economics from the University of Cambridge (1996), an MSc in Economics (with Distinction;1997) and a PhD in Economics (2005) from the University of London.